DPReview is 25 and and goes down the memory lane with The rise and fall of the compact camera.
Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, and, along with some help from Samsung and other manufacturers, it would change photography forever. However, iPhone sales didn’t really take off until around 2012, and, what do you know, that’s when the compact camera crash began.
The author isn’t enthusiastic on point and shoot cameras making a comeback. Charts show the very steep decline in the number of models released and the steep rise (and mostly plateau-ed) number of smartphones sold.
As I previously linked manufacturers were unprepared for the point and shoot camera revival when some demand for advanced compact camera came following some influencers, and it might be that we’ll only get these more costly compact camera. The Fujifilm X100VI is basically unobtainium and the already few years old Canon G7X MkIII is even worse. The Ricoh GR III availability is trending that way too, while Leica has the D-Lux 8, a rebadged Panasonic that cost as much as the Fujifilm. As for Sony, it seems that their focus seems to be on the ZV series that are geared towards video, this being stripped down version of the RX100 that hasn’t an update for a while. The only not too pricey segment that seems to exist is the rugged cameras, combination of tough and underwater resistance for which both Ricoh and Olympus have updated model.